Structuralism (philosophy of science)

Structuralismα[›] (also known as the structuralistic theory-concept[1]) is a theory of science that asserts that all aspects of reality are best understood in terms of empirical scientific constructs of entities and their relations, rather than in terms of concrete entities in themselves.[2] For instance, the concept of matter should be interpreted not as an absolute property of nature in itself, but instead of how scientifically-grounded mathematical relations describe how the concept of matter interacts with other properties, whether that be in a broad sense such as the gravitational fields that mass-produces or more empirically as how matter interacts with sense systems of the body to produce sensations such as weight.[3] Its aim is to comprise all important aspects of an empirical theory in one formal framework. The proponents of this meta-theoretic theory are Patrick Suppes, Joseph D. Sneed, Wolfgang Stegmüller, Carlos Ulises Moulines and Wolfgang Balzer.

The philosophical concept of (scientific) structuralism is related to that of (epistemic) structural realism.[2] Structural realism, a position originally and independently held by Henri Poincaré (whose structuralism was combined with neo-Kantian views about the nature of arithmetic) and Bertrand Russell[4] was resurrected by John Worrall, who proposes that there is retention of structure across theory change. Worrall, for example, argued that Fresnel's equations imply that light has a structure and that Maxwell's equations, which replaced Fresnel's, do also; both characterize light as vibrations. Fresnel postulated that the vibrations were in a mechanical medium called "ether"; Maxwell postulated that the vibrations were of electric and magnetic fields. The structure in both cases is the vibrations and it was retained when Maxwell's theories replaced Fresnel's.[5] Because structure is retained, structural realism both (a) avoids 'pessimistic meta-induction'β[›] and (b) does not make the success of science seem miraculous.

A variant of epistemic structural realism, known as ontic structural realism, focuses more precisely on the relationships between things.[2] It holds that things in themselves cannot be experienced or even known directly. The only indication that the thing in itself exists is how it relates to other entities in the world. One common example[3] is a perfectly symmetrical face. When this face is viewed in the mirror, the right eye is switched to the left side, left ear to the right side, etc. yet the resulting form is indistinguishable from the original face. This is because only the relationship between the parts of the face matter. The actual constituents have no meaning in themselves other than that they create when assembled into the final form.

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Notes

^β: So-called 'pessimistic meta-inductions' about theoretical knowledge have the following basic form: "Proposition p is widely believed by most contemporary experts, but p is like many other hypotheses that were widely believed by experts in the past and are disbelieved by most contemporary experts. We have as much reason to expect p to befall their fate as not, therefore we should at least suspend judgement about p if not actively disbelieve it.

Frederick Suppe ed., The structure of scientific theories: symposium, 1969, Urbana, Ill.: outgrowth with a critical introduction and an afterword by Frederick Suppe, University of Illinois Press, 1977.